Blackouts
by PheonixFireBlack
Summary: (The Butterfly Effect) A sixteen year old girl has suffered from blackouts for as long as she can remember. She knows about her father's blackouts, but are they similar in any way? How will she deal with it all? Sci-fiTriller


Title - Blackouts By - PheonixFireBlack Summary - (The Butterfly Effect) A sixteen year old girl has suffered from blackouts for as long as she can remember. She knows about her father's blackouts, but are they similar in any way? How will she deal with it all? Category - Misc. Movies./The Butterfly Effect Feedback - Yes! I love it! IM - YES! FUN! Check the profile! Rating - R - Language and possible (future) content. Come on, the movie was R, why wouldn't my fic be R? *rolls eyes* Ok, so that's now a good reason but whatever lol.  
  
A/N - Yes...I just saw The Butterfly Effect this weekend (Saturday, 2-7-04 to be specific...lol) and I can't help it...I wanna write a fic! lol! I think there are only like...3 or 4 on ff.net so...I decided that I'd add to the small ammount there ^^ Anyway...here are some real notes for the fic: I know how it ended and all...basically in a missed chances kind of way, anyhow...Evan and Kayleigh are married now...they have a kid, a girl in specifics here and...well, you read the summary! I'm not sure how just yet, but her way of going back in time is going to be different than the journals thing and it's not going to be like Evan's dad...no picture album either. If you have any ideas though, could you tell me? ^_^  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
"Mom! Dad! Come on! I don't wanna be late!" A young teenage girl with shoulder length dark hair yelled up the stairs. She was almost the female version of her father; that's how close the two were in looks.  
  
"I'm ready, it's your mother that's taking her sweet time." Evan Treborn said as he came down the stairs.  
  
"I'll be down in a minute! You two can wait that long, I'm sure!" Kayleigh Treborn was putting on the finishing touches of her makeup. A few moments later, she came downstairs. Her long blonde hair was done up in a lose bun and she was in a pair of black jeans, black high-top-like boots and a white button down t-shirt. "Ok, I'm ready."  
  
"Thank you!"  
  
"Alexia Marie Treborn! Don't you dare try and blame this one on me." Kayleigh scolded her daughter playfully.  
  
"Well, what do you expect? I want to see ALL of the moive...I don't want to miss the first five minutes like we did last time!" Alexia bounced on the balls of her feet anxiously.  
  
"We didn't miss that much of the last movie, honey." Evan said.  
  
"Daaad, come on!" Alexia started bouncing on the balls of her feet again.  
  
Evan chuckled at his daughter's impaitence. "Alright, go start the car, kiddo." He said, tossing her the keys.  
  
"Can I drive?"  
  
"No."  
  
"But, dad! I have to get the permit experience before I can get my lisence!"  
  
"Exactally."  
  
"What?" Alexia was confused. "Dad, you're not making any sense."  
  
"If you don't get the driving experience, you know we won't let you get your lisence."  
  
"Yeeaah...aaannddd?" The dark haired girl was still confused.  
  
"I think...what you're father is so unsuccesfully trying to say is: Alexia, hun, you're just growing up too fast. I don't think daddy wants his baby girl going out on those streets alone." Kayleigh said, leaning on her husband's back, resting her head and his shoulder. She loved teasing Evan about small things like that.  
  
Evan half-heartedly glared at his wife. It's not that it was false; he didn't want her out there. When she got her liscense in two months, he knew that meant there were only a matter of two years before she moved out. Yes, Alexia had talked so much about moving out the instant she was eighteen and Even throughly expressed his opinion on the matter. That was the only subject that ever got him really irked. He didn't want her to leave. He was his only baby girl and...when she was gone...He shook his head. He couldn't think about that right now.  
  
"I'm not a baby any more!" Alexia stamped her foot, turned on her heel and went out the door to start the car.  
  
"Is she so sure about that?" Evan muttered, kissing Kayleigh before the couple headed off to follow their daughter. They found her, car started, in the backseat, headphones already blaring. They could hear every word of the song she was listening to. Evan recognized it as "Because of You" by Nickelback. Alexia was muttering the lyrics to herself. "Hands on the mirror. Can't get much clearer. Can't make this all go away. Now that you're bleeding. You stare at the ceiling. And what as it all fade away." Evan paused at the last line. He shook his head. No...that song had nothing to do with that. He got in the car and pulled out of the driveway.  
  
The entire way to the theater was made up of complete silence other than Alexia's music. The movie the family had watched ended up being a almost total dud. It had its funny moments but it wasn't as good as either of the three thought it was going to be. Evan made a comment about something and Alexia glanced at him, but that was it. "Alex...tell me you're not still mad about earlier?" She crossed her arms over her chest and ignored him. Evan rolled his eyes. Teenagers. He thought. They're so difficult. "Alex--"  
  
Before Evan made anything even worse, Kayleigh intervened. "Alexia...your father didn't call you a baby. If anyone said it...I did. But that's now how I meant for you to take it. I was teasing your father. It wasn't even meant to be directed at you, honey." Kayleigh knew that Alexia was really close to Evan but she also knew that Evan could really mess things up in a current argument between the two. She had had to intervene, or so she had thought appropriate. She couldn't let him make the girl angrier.  
  
Alexia blinked a few times. "Oh." She said simply. She didn't like being wrong, it made her uncomfortable. As the trio stood their, each at their specific place outside of the car (Evan at the driver's side; Kayliegh at the front passenger's side; and Alexia at the back right passenger's side) Alexia shifted her weight from one foot to the other a few times. "Sorry, dad." She muttered.  
  
Though a mere mutter, Evan knew his daughter's appology was sincere. He smirked. "It's alright, kiddo." With that, Evan unlocked the doora and they each got in the car.  
  
On the way back home from the movie theater, it started raining. Really hard. In a matter of minutes the roads were slick, but after the seven minutes that Evan had been driving, the roads were extremely slick. No matter how much traction your car's tires could get, they would slip, even if only slightly, in this rain. All Alexia remembered was the bright flash of headlights, which she had figured was just a car passing by in the opposing lane. However, she was wrong, but she wasn't sure what happened.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
Alexia woke with a start, sitting up immediately. She instantly knew where she was. She was in the hospital. She didn't feel any pain, though, so...why was she in the hospital? A nurse that was nearby watched her. Alexia's eyes darted around the room, trying to find a familiar face. She soon found out that there were none; not in this room. She almost immediately went into panic mode. "Where's my mom...and my dad?" She asked quietly. No one seemed to hear her though. "Where's my dad?" She asked again, though it was louder this time, and accompanied with tears, "And my mom? Where are they!"  
  
The nurse that hadn't been far off, turned and rushed over to her. "Honey, calm down."  
  
"Where are my parents?" She yelled.  
  
"Calm down, child...calm down...breathe in...breathe--"  
  
"Where. Are. My. Parents?" She yelled again, this time she practically spelled the sentence out.  
  
"Your mother is fine...she's right there," the nurse gestured and Alexia saw her mother's smiling face as she waved. Alexia managed a sad smile and waved her fingers to her mother. Forgetting about the nurse for a moment, Alexia turned to her mother. "Mom? Where's daddy?" The tears she had in her eyes were threatening to spill any moment now.  
  
Before her mother could say anything, the nurse, whose name Alexia had caught from the nametag was Barbra, had stepped between the teenage girl and her mother. The woman took Alexia by the shoulders. "Honey...calm down...when you calm down, you'll get an explanation about your father."  
  
"What? What happened to him? Why do I have to be calm for the news? Is it bad?" She held the tears back, but barely. She took three deep breaths, the last one that she exhaled was more of a sigh. "Ok...calm...now...Where's my dad?" Alexia asked, a falsetto calm tone in her voice. She wasn't calm now and she wasn't going to be until she knew where her father was.  
  
"Ok. Hun, your father...he's in the ER. He had a serious head injury and--"  
  
"Oh, God...this is bad."  
  
"Let me finish. He had a head injury and the doctors think that it's possible that he might slip into a coma."  
  
"What? No. That can't let that happen."  
  
"They can't control that kind of thing."  
  
"No. You don't understand." Alexia said, sitting completely upright now. She hadn't gotten injured in the slightest other than a small cut on her forehead. "My dad...he..." She took a deep breath. "Ok, this is gonna sound totally crazy and insane, but you have to listen to me, ok?" When Barbra nodded, more or less to humor the child, Alexia continued. "Ok...my dad...ever since he was like...seven...he's had blackouts. A-and....when he was in college, seven years, no blackouts, right? Well...he found out that...by re-reading some old journal passages...he could...go back in time to when that passage took place and--" The nurse looked ready to say something, but Alexia kept the woman silence. "Wait. And...well...he tried to change one thing, but it all backfired because it would affect the present for the worse. Anyway...I don't know what would happen if he went into a coma...but I don't think that it could, in any way, be...good." She paused. "Ok...I'm done."  
  
"Honey, I think your father made something like that up when you were young and...you believed it and for some reason you still believe that silly story he would tell you. But, Alexia isn't it?" She nodded, "Alexia...that's just something he made up."  
  
"No! No it's not! My mom knows about it! My grandmother knows too! My grandfather was the same way!"  
  
"Alright, dear. If you say so."  
  
"He wasn't lying when he told me that! I'm not lying! It's the truth! You have to believe me!"  
  
Kayleigh shook her head. She had been put in a wheelchair and gone over to her daughter. "Honey, it's useless."  
  
Alexia blinked and the tears rolled down her face. "But...mama...daddy...he...."  
  
"Mrs. Treborn?" Someone else had just entered the room.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I need to speak with you."  
  
Kayleigh rolled herself over towards the doctor. "Yes?"  
  
"Your husband is Evan Treborn, correct?" She nodded. "Alright...then I must tell you," The doctor hesitated, making Kayleigh wonder what had happened. "He's doing fine. He had a minor concussion, it wasn't serious, unlike what you were told."  
  
Kayleigh let out a sigh of relief. "Thank, God." She looked up at the doctor, "Do you do that all the time?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Try to give people heart attacks. I know you might get more pay that way but, really Doctor Kelly, you shouldn't do that." Kayleigh joked.  
  
The man chuckled as he exited the room.  
  
"Mom? What's wrong with dad?" Alexia asked immediately when her mother started back towards her bed.  
  
Kayleigh smiled. "He's fine. It wasn't serious, despite what we were told earlier. It was a minor concussion."  
  
"Thank, God." She sighed. "Thank, God. Thank, God. Thank, God."  
  
Barbra looked at Kayleigh, an eyebrow raised. "I know he's her father but...wow."  
  
"They're...really close." Kayleigh supplied the simplest answer that she could muster.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
It was two days later and Kayleigh had take out her small, almost hand-held video recorder. She had been suffering from blackouts ever since she could remember; or at least since she was six or seven. The therapist she had gone to had told her to do something; Keep a journal, keep lots of photos, anything that she could do like that to keep things in her mind, and perhaps even jog her memory of some of the times she had blacked out one day. She kept a video-diary, a personal, for her and her parents' eyes only online blog, and she also kept normal journals as well. The only thing that Alexia didn't have was a photo album. She didn't want to do that. However, she was ready, that was for sure. She could refer to all of it on paper, video, or even online. She would write something, then type it up, and then, after both written entries were done, Alexia would make a video- entry. She was prepared for pretty much anything. She was holding the camera towards her, it's flip-video already flipped out. "Well...I haven't had any blackouts today...considering I only just woke up. You can probably tell from the hair." She paused. "No blackouts lately...unless of course you count the whole...coming home from the movies, seeing headlights then.....BAM! Waking up in a hospital thing a blackout. Of course, that was a blackout and I have no clue how bad the crash was. I should ask Dad...or Mom...or...God? Nah...I'm not Joan of Arc...God doesn't talk to me...and if he did...people would think I was schitzo." She smiled, "Anyway, this video- log is done until later." She nodded and turned the camera off, closing the flip-out video and placed the camera on her desk. That's when she typed some stuff up in that online blog of hers.  
  
5-8-37  
  
Well, long time no blackout...that is, until 5-6-37. Yep...Sunday...Here are the events that matter of that day, in order of occurance: Mom, Dad, and I were going to the theater. Dad and I were ready but Mom was taking absoulutely forever to get ready. Honestly, why does someone need to get aaaallll dressed up when they are going to be in the dark for two hours? I  
just don't understand... Oh well. Anyway, there was a bit of dialouge exchanged about me driving and...well...mom said "I don't think daddy wants his baby girl going out on those streets alone." I took it the wrong way  
and got pissed off. I started the car and started listening to my CD player. Movie was ok...nothing for Jason Lancaster to gloat too much about--  
no matter how hot the man is. Movie's done...we're walking out of the building...all earlier misunderstandings are fixed by mom. I feel like a complete moron and we all get into the car. A few minutes later, it starts raining. Really hard too. I saw headlights, figured it was just a car go past us in the opposing lane. I was wrong--I hate being wrong, you know-- but I don't know what happened. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital. I was fie, mom was fine, and we were told dad that serious head injuries. After a lot of yelling from me to the nurse, a doctor came in and told mom something. I couldn't hear him but mom told me what he said. Dad's  
fine...minor concussion. All is good and well.  
-End first entry of 5-8-37  
  
"Glad that's done." She smiled. "Shit...now I have to write that all down in the journal. This sucks!" She sighed. "Then again...It was my idea for the video-log...and dad wanted me to keep a journal...then, as a joke, I suggested a personal, for mine and their eyes only, online blog...Dad just had to take me seriously. Damn. I guess that's what I get for opening my mouth." She rolled her eyes and jumped on her bed. She leaned over the side of the bed and pulled the box out, picking up the journal that was on top. She went back to her desk, getting a pen and copied down what she had on the screen. After a few minutes she put the pen down. "Thank you! Finally! I hate this..." Alexia sighed and walked over to her closet. "What to wear today, what to wear..." She pressed teh button on the inside wall to move her shirts around. It wasn't a walk-in closet exactly, but close enough. She finally decided on a black tank top and a pair of jeans that did an odd kind of fading thing: At the waist it started white, then went to silver, gray, charcoal, and pitch black, only to start over again. After she put on her black tennish shoes, Alexia went downstairs, muttering to herself. "Ok...note to self...record over the last video-log. That was stupid and lame. Read off what I typed up." She nodded. "There. All will be better in a little while." She proclaimed.  
  
"What are you babbling about?" Evan asked his daughter as he came into thte living room.  
  
"I have to re-do the video-log I did a few minutes ago. It was short, sad, and sooo not to the point."  
  
Evan shook his head. "Alright. Did you write in the journal?"  
  
She nodded. "And I typed it up on the blog too."  
  
"Are you sure that no one came find that thing? And read it?"  
  
"Well...it's not like it matters, right? I mean...so they know I have blackouts. That's it. There's no info in my profile."  
  
"E-mail address?"  
  
"No, dad. Zilch, nadda, nothing, none, whatever choice of word you want to you...it's not there." Alexia rolled her eyes. she went into the kitchen and grabbed a soda, even though it was only seven in the morning and she had just woken up. As she came back into the living room, she popped the can open. "Where's mom?" She asked, taking a sip of the green-colored soda, also known as Mt. Dew.  
  
"She had to go to work early today."  
  
"Oh. Well, guess it's just you and me today then?" She asked, joining him on the couch.  
  
"You have school."  
  
"Not today." She paused, "School's out for...I think it's a teacher-work day or something. I don't know, I don't care. All I need to know is that I don't have school today." She set her can of soda on the coffee table, then leaned back into the couch. "Have anything planned to do today, dad?"  
  
"No, is there something you wanted to do?" He asked, and eyebrow raised in question of his daughter.  
  
"Weeellll, since you asked." She grinned, "Let me drive! I don't care where we go, I just wanna drive!"  
  
Evan shook his head, "Alright..."  
  
"Really? Cool! I've only driven with you like, once...it's always mom...anyway, when can we go?" Alexis could get hyper very quick, very early in the morning.  
  
"Well...not right now, I just woke up and I don't feel like moving. It'll have to be later."  
  
"Before mom gets home, dad."  
  
"It will be."  
  
"But after Buffy. I have to have my daily dose of Spike."  
  
"I can't believe that still run that damn show."  
  
"Too bad James Marsters is like...seventy-five or dead. Oh well, he was hot when he was...forty...something."  
  
Evan shook his head. "You are strange."  
  
"I...am a typical teenage girl."  
  
"Blackouts are typical, are they?"  
  
"Well...except for that...and the fact that my dad had--has--whatever-- blackouts...and found out in college that he could...go back in time. Then...he learned that going back didn't help much...chaning the past ruined the present....but it all worked out in the end, right?" She titled her head to the side.  
  
"Yeah..." Evan shook his head, "Go...stare at some poster in your room."  
  
"Ok. Poster of a shirtless Jason Lancaster...here I come!" She grinned at her father's expression and ran back up to her room. While she was there, "basking in Jason" as she so put it, Alexia decided to fix her newest video- log. That didn't take long.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
It was the middle of July before anything interesting happened in the Treborn family again. It actually came to the family as a shock. Alexia didn't have blackouts quite as often as her father had seemed to have them, but she did have them. Currently, she was with her two best friends: Casandra "Cassy" and Matthew "Matt" Williams. The two were brother and sister and both best friends with Alexia. Matt was a year older than the two girls so he drove them around whenever they wanted to go somewhere. Currently, however, no one was driving anyone anywhere. The trio had started out talking in Alexia's back yard, sitting on the porch. Though, now, the three were walking around in the woods outside the house. They were bored and they needed to do something, so they walked around and talked. "Damn...I want a smoke. Got anything on ya, Matt?" Alexia asked. Law had changed since her father had been a teenager. When you were seventeen, you were a legal adult and you could do pretty much anything-- long as your parents let you or you lied and said you were allowed. For the lying bit though, you'd have to be really good at telling lies.  
  
Matt nodded, taking out a pack of ciggarettes for each of them. "Gotcha your own damn pack of cigs. You won't have ta smoke all of mine now." He said, handing Alexia the pack of Marlboro menthols.  
  
"Menthols! Woohoo! You really do know me well, don'tcha, Matt?"  
  
"It didn't take long for me to know you favored them, Alex...you going around half the time saying something about really liking the menthols and all."  
  
"Ahh...so you don't really know me...you just catch on quickly." She grinned. "Let me guess? You didn't get a lighter for each of us?"  
  
"That's where you're wrong, dear friend." Matt said. "Give her her damn lighter, Cassy."  
  
"Shut the fuck up, Matt." Cassandra said, putting a piece of her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. She got something out of her pocket, which was soon to be revealed as a dark green lighter. "Here, Alex."  
  
"Thank you." She sing-songed, lighting up. "I love the fact that we have the woods out back. It's a great place to smoke." She paused, glancing at Matt and Cassy over her shoulder. "And have a good fuck."  
  
"What?" The two practically yelled.  
  
"You've had sex? Who was it?" Cassy asked.  
  
Alexia laughed, "You two are so damn gulliable. But yeah, it was James Cartaway."  
  
"Who?" Cassy repeated, the name obviously didn't ring a bell.  
  
"He's that guy practically everyone in school thinks is a real weird- ass...practically the only punk Benji-like guy.--He's that guy with really weird hair and tatoos all over him in that band my parents listen too, Good Charlotte."  
  
"Hot damn girl! He's fine."  
  
"I know. And he's good too."  
  
"How good?" Cassy had barely escaped being claimed as the school slut.  
  
"Really good."  
  
"When was it?"  
  
"Few years ago."  
  
"But you've only been here for two."  
  
"I know. We had woods behind our old house too. He was my first but...it was...ah., probably two years ago. We fucked a few times...he was good though. He was about two houses down from me and his parents were hardly ever home, so it was pretty easy, ya know?"  
  
Cassy laughed, "Your parents know?"  
  
"Are you a fucking insane idiot? No, they don't know! Mom wouldn't mind as much as dad, ya know? She's care, give me a lecture that would last ten years and give me "the talk" and shit but...whatever man. Dad on the other hand...oh, God! I don't even want to imagine what he would do. Ground me till I was dead, confine me to the house, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere without some "trusted" watchperson." She shook her head. "God, I'd make him go to a mental institution."  
  
Matt rolled his eyes, "So, can we talk about something other than how good a lay James...whatever the fuck his name was, is...was...whatever."  
  
Cassy and Alexia looked at each other and laughed but agreed. "Alright."  
  
Alexia took the final drag from her second ciggarette and then she ground it into a nearby tree. "So, is there anything in particular that we plan on doing today? Or was we just gonna walk around here all day?"  
  
"Well...what do you want to do?" Cassy asked.  
  
"I dunno, what about you?"  
  
She shrugged, "I dunno."  
  
The two girls looked at Matt, "What do you wanna do?" They chorused.  
  
"I don't care as long as we get out of here and we actually do something."  
  
The trio turned back around and headed back towards the house and soon found themselves in Matt's car. They drove around for about three hours and then, they all started to get bored. The music on the radio even started to get more boring as the day wore on. "Cassy, give me your cell. Need ta ring my dad, let him know I'm fine and all that shit." Alexia took the phone from her friend and dialed the number. "Hey dad...yeah...yeah....I'm fine...yes...yes, I'm sure. What? Oh...ok...whatever. In a few. Bye."  
  
"What was that all about?" Matt asked, glancing at Alexia in the rear-view mirror.  
  
"Turn this piece of shit around." Came her answer.  
  
"Why?" Matt didn't take orders too well with no explanation. He kept going the way he was going.  
  
Alexia rolled her eyes, "My dad wants me home. Now."  
  
"Why?" Cassy asked.  
  
"I don't know. He wouldn't say. He just said that I needed to get home now and that is was important."  
  
With the explanation complete, Matt turned around and took the girl home. Alexia and Cassy talked animatedly all the way there. About boys, movies, hot actors, Jason Lancaster, and anything else they could think of. Matt, happy he wouldn't have to listen to the pair of girls ramble on about how hot Jason Lancaster was, pulled into the Treborn's driveway. "Well...see you guys later." Alexia said. "Time to go to 'parents-are-here mode'." She grinned, getting out of the car and watching as the drove away. She turned on the hell of her tennis shoes and ran up the four stone steps and into the house. "Dad? What's going on?" She even managed to sound a little worried, what with him needing her home now and it being so important and all.  
  
He turned around, but it wasn't her father that Alexia saw. It was a relative from her mother's side: Uncle Tommy. What was he doing here? Last Alexia had known, he was off in Vegas or someplace like that. Why was he here all the sudden? And...where were her parents? They had been here when she left, but now they didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. If her dad had called her to get her home, he had to be here. Plus, her dad's car, as well as her own which happened to be boken down right now, were both in the garage. What was going on? "Uncle Tommy...Out of curiosity...what are you doing here? And...where's dad?" Alexia never had really talked to, met, or associated with her Uncle Tommy and she really didn't know how to handle him.  
  
"I just wanted to see my niece." He answered simply. "As far as your parents go...don't worry. They're fine." He hadn't used a tone that Alexia could believe.  
  
"What? No...where are they? Are they here? Or did you...disable the alarm system or something?" Alexia couldn't help it, the questions were running through her mind, she had to ask them.  
  
"They're...fine. Don't worry." He repeated.  
  
"No...WHERE are they? I want to know where my parents are! What did you do to them?"  
  
The next thing Alexia knew, she was jumping over old Mrs. MacinRoe's white picket fence and ran up to the front door, banding on the door loudly. No one came. She banged quicker, louder but still, no one. She let out a scream but still, no one came to the door, and shockingly enough, no one in the whole of the culdasack that the Treborns lived on, came out to see what was going on. Just my luck! Dammit! She ran and jumped over the fence again, running to the next house. She screamed at the top of her lungs and banged on the door and was glad to hear someone rushing to the door. The door was thrown open. "Please! Let me use your phone!"  
  
"Come in, go on!" The woman yelled, not sure what was going on.  
  
Alexia ran past the woman and waited as the woman seemed to make her way oh- too-slowly towards her. She pointed to a door, "Phone's in the kitchen, hun." Alexia immediately ran through the door the woman had pointed at and into the kitchen. She picked up the phone. Just her luck it was an old ring- dial phone. She dialed the number but had to wait for it to click-click- click nine times, then once, then once more. She got an operater.  
  
"Hello...please state your name and your emergency."  
  
"Alexia Marie Treborn. Fifty-six-thirty-seven Breezeway drive. There's a guy in my house. He had a dagger. And I think he's trying to kill my dad. But I don't know why." She had compeltely forgotten about Tommy being her uncle.  
  
"We'll have someone there as soon as possible, Miss."  
  
"I need someone here NOW! Not 'as soon as possible' NOW dammit!" Alexia had heard the woman gasp when she was explaining the situation to the operator.  
  
"I'll send someone right now." And she hung up.  
  
"Oh my GOD!" She slammed the phone down, only to pick it up again. "I have to call my mom." With that six-worded explanation to the woman standing there in her own kitchen, with the very much fretting teenage girl, Alexia dialed her mother's work number. Five clicks...four...another five....eight...seven...six...and the final four....Then another operator- sounding person. "State your name and the name of the person I shall direct your call to?"  
  
"This is Alexia Treborn calling for Kayleigh Treborn." Alexia said.  
  
"Please hold." Now there was awful elevator-like stuff they thought deserved to be called "music".  
  
The music is gone and another person's voice is heard, "Alex?"  
  
"Mom! Uncle Tommy's here...well...at the house. He had dad tied up to one of the posts on the four-poster...really tight knots...I had to burn them. He's got a dagger, he cut me on the leg already, when I was going upstairs to get to dad after I heard him yelling for something. Tommy grabbed my leg and slit it. I got up and got to dad...like I said...tied to the four- poster...I had to burn the rope away. Dad told me to go to Cassy and Matt's house but I knew I couldn't get there in time. Something really bad would happen. I'm at...well, I'm not sure who's house I'm at, but she seems really nice. Anyway...I called for police already, I guess they're being sent. The operator woman was pretty much, pardon the french, a bitch. She said ws that they'd have somone there ASAP. I told her I needed them there now, not as soon as possible, but now, but she just said that she's send someone and she hung up." Alexia was shocked that she had managed all of that in two breaths.  
  
"What? Oh my God. I have to go. I'll be home in a few. Where are you again, dear?"  
  
"Umm...two houses down from ours. Fifty-four-thirty-five...she's to the left, facing our house, of Mrs. MacinRoe's house."  
  
"Ok. I'll be there soon. Bye."  
  
"Bye..." Alexia said, slowly replacing the phone on the receiver. "Sorry about all of that, Mrs., uhm..."  
  
"Jackson. Lee Jackson."  
  
"Sorry about that Mrs. Jackson..." She repeated.  
  
"It's ok, honey...here. Come sit down here..." She gestured towards the table.  
  
Alexia nodded and walked over slowly to the table and sat down. She put her elbows on the table, running her hands through her hair, pausing near the front. What had happened? Something had to have happened betweent the time that she was yelling at her uncle to when she was banging on Mrs. MacinRoe's door. But what was it? She couldn't remember, not if her life depended on it. What the hell happened? One part of her mind yelled at her. I don't know...I don't remember... Another part of her answered. She didn't realize it, but tears had already leaked from her eyes. What if something happens to dad? That second part of her brain asked. What am I going to do? To which the first part answered both questions: I don't know...I honestly don't think I can go on without him...he's the only one that's close to me that understands...he understands the blackouts....  
  
"Honey, what's wrong?" Lee Jackson asked her.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I heard your story over the phone but...what's going on in your mind right now?"  
  
"I...I don't want to lose my dad...he's the only one that understands...the only one that's close to me...that really understands..."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"The....the blackouts...my dad...he's the only one that can really understand them...he...he had 'em too..ya know? He...he understands."  
  
"Oh...Well...I'm sure everything will be fine. I know your father...he'll be fine...don't worry. Everything will be ok, hun."  
  
Alexia nodded. She had to at least try and believe it. She tried, but it didn't work very well. She just knew in her mind that he wasn't going to be alright; nothing was going to be it ok. 


End file.
